SPRING AT THE CAPITAL. 191 



I must not forget to mention the many 

 springs with which this whole region is sup- 

 plied, each the centre of some wild nook, 

 perhaps the head of a little valley one or 

 two hundred yards long, through which one 

 catches a glimpse, or hears the voice of the 

 main creek rushing along below. 



My walks tend in this direction more fre- 

 quently than in any other. Here the boys 

 go too, troops of them, of a Sunday, to bathe 

 and prowl around, and indulge the semi-bar- 

 barous instincts that still lurk within them. 

 Life, in all its forms, is most abundant near 

 water. The rank vegetation nurtures the 

 insects, and the insects draw the birds. The 

 first week in March, on some southern slope 

 where the sunshine lies warm and long, I 

 usually find the hepatica in bloom, though 

 with scarcely an inch of stalk. In the 

 spring runs, the skunk cabbage pushes its 

 pike up through the mould, the flower ap- 

 pearing first, as if Nature had made a mis- 

 take. 



It is not till about the 1st of April that 

 many wild -flowers may be looked for. By 

 this time, the hepatica, anemone, saxifrage, 

 arbutus, houstonia, and blood-root may be 

 counted on. A week later, the claytonia, or 



